


All the King's Men

by Hypsidium



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Drama, Explosives, Not Really Character Death, in which I staple Donatello to a rooftop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-03-24 22:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3786718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypsidium/pseuds/Hypsidium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Y-yep.” Mikey swallowed thickly, hazarding a sickly smile. Oh God, Donatello was going to die here on this random rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen and there was nothing he could do about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Black and Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go out to InactivelyVerby for her invaluable service as a beta! And as a minion. Though I may be her minion. We're not real clear on that.
> 
> Thanks go out to Illusionna for her assistance as beta as well! _Go read Other Side of the City._

**Black and Blue**

_Kiss my eyes_  
_They're black and blue_  
_Even if I shouldn't be here_  
_I cannot help myself with you_  
_There's something that I should have told you_  


**Snow Patrol**

______

“Okay, okay, okay...” He was wheezing now, eyes closed, obviously trying not to let himself slide down the spiral of shock. He was silent for a moment, just long enough for Mikey to make a distressed noise in his throat. The sound of sirens in the distance filled the empty space.

“Mikey, listen, I’m prob-probably going to pass out. I need you to-” he cut himself off, hissing as he shifted under Mikey’s hands. He was so, so pale. He had always been paler than his brothers, but he was looking worse by the minute. He opened his eyes to look at him, but they were slightly unfocused, like he got when he was running on half empty at three in the morning. He blinked at him blearily, a line creasing between his brows as he tried to focus enough to keep explaining what to do. Mikey wanted to run his thumb down that line and smooth it away like they had when they were kids.

Michelangelo registered dimly that his hastily removed wraps were soaked in blood and it was seeping through onto his hands. He tried to shove it aside - he had seen blood before plenty of times, but this was...There was a lot. His brother’s shoulder was a gory mess under his palms and it felt like he was holding him together just by applying pressure. The flashlight tucked into the crook of his neck wavered haphazardly with every motion, the only light on for blocks. The concussive blast had taken out a transformer.

Somewhere below them a child was crying and an adult was hysterically explaining the situation to what was likely the cops. There was a crackle down the street like a gunshot, the sound of something shorting out. Sparks briefly illuminated down the road and then faded again. Casey grunted and something heavy and metallic hit the rooftop several feet away. They needed to be gone like yesterday.

“-Listening?” Donatello asked pointedly, his eyes a little less glassy and sharpening into focus again as he fixed him with a glare. Trust Donnie to get his head back in the game just because he was pissed for him supposedly not listening.

“Y-yep.” Mikey swallowed thickly, hazarding a sickly smile. Oh God, Donatello was going to die here on this random rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen and there was nothing he could do about it. “Leave it in there. Tie it up so its stable.”

Donnie made as if to nod but stopped himself with a choked noise as it disturbed the half of his staff that had been catapulted directly through his left shoulder. The other half was nowhere to be found, probably disintegrated in the blast. They were lucky this was the worst they had to deal with. “‘N’ then...?” He was losing that razor edged intensity already, his eyes drooping closed. 

Mikey hoped against hope that Leo and Raph would show up with the Shellraiser already. 

“Then we get you detached from the damned rooftop.” Mikey flicked his kusarigama open, the bladed end pretty much the only option for sawing through the splintered remains. It wasn’t meant for fire hardened wood and it was going to hurt like hell. 

“Oh, am I attached?” Donnie asked vaguely, flicking a lazy glance at the tar-and-gravel underneath him. It was telling that he didn’t even react to Michelangelo's language. He could have been talking about the weather for all the disinterest in his tone. He was losing his grip on consciousness. “Well.”

Mikey choked down the panic welling up in his stomach, threatening to turn itself inside out onto the ground, and nodded as he worked to get his wraps secured around the shaft sticking out of his brother without disturbing him too much. It was difficult at best and he wasn’t getting it properly done until he had Donnie peeled away from the rooftop. 

Casey appeared at his shoulder, shaking and pale. He had taken care of the remaining Footbots while Mikey was getting the bleeding to stop, but without the fight to distract him he had promptly emptied his guts over the side of the roof. “Hey,” he said in a quavering voice. “Saw the Shellraiser’s lights coming, they’re ‘bout six blocks thataway.”

Mikey just acknowledged it with a nod and grabbed Casey’s hands, pressing them around the staff despite Casey’s protesting. “Hold this still. I need to s-slide him up so I can cut him free.”

“Oh God, oh God, oh God...” was all Casey had to offer, whispering it like a mantra under his breath. He squinted his eyes shut but he held the staff firmly so it wouldn’t waver and do more damage. Casey wasn’t like Mikey and his brothers, Casey saw bloody noses and teeth knocked out, but Casey didn’t get involved in things like this. Not until recently. It was to be expected that this was out of his jurisdiction.

Mikey gritted his teeth and pushed his hands under Donnie’s shell, lifting him as gingerly as he could and at an angle as near to that of the staff as he could. The sound Donnie made was not one he ever wanted to relive, but in seconds his brother had collapsed from the sheer pain of it. It didn’t make it easier, in fact, Mikey felt even more anxious. The bladed end was bent at a 45 degree angle, most of it imbedded deep in the roof and only a portion of it even visible now. Mikey felt along the staff for the end of the hidden internal sheath and almost sobbed in dismay when he found the end was inside his brother. He couldn’t cut through it, not like this.

“Casey.” Mikey said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I am going to stay right here and I need you to get Raph and Leo up here, right now.”

Casey nodded and let go once Mikey had braced Donnie’s limp body against himself and got his own hands around the other end of the staff, eager to get away from the scene. He disappeared down the fire escape in a hurry, clattering off into the dark. 

“Hang in there, bro.” Mikey whispered to his brother’s still form. 

It took Raph and Leo, with Casey and April in tow, only about five minutes to arrive. It was the longest five minutes in Mikey’s entire life, his legs cramping painfully under his brother’s weight and blood seeping down his thighs. A sluggish flow now, but still prevalent.

Leo took one look at the situation at his expression hardened with resolve. Mikey felt a swell of relief at it - Leo was here, Leo was in charge, and he would make it better. Raph took Mikey’s place and pushed Donnie further up so Leo could slice through the staff cleanly, just above the hidden internal sheath, leaving about a foot of the staff remaining to keep the wound clogged. Between the two of them they got Donatello onto Raph’s back and stable enough for them to make the precarious climb back down. 

The road was a mess. The bomb had exploded shortly after Donnie had baseball swung it away in a blind panic, leaving him to take the worst of it. It had been blindingly bright, a fireball in midair over the street before the shrapnel had spread and the ‘whumph’ of displaced air had knocked them off their feet. The building’s edge had shielded them from the worst of the metal scrap at least, but Casey was bleeding from his leg even if he was trying to hide it. 

The ride back in the Shellraiser was almost entirely silent, aside from April speaking to Mikey very softly so he would turn his shell towards her. She pulled several chunks of metal out, not imbedded deep enough to cause much more than gouging. He was the reason Casey was still breathing at all, having shoved him to the ground and gotten between them as soon as he heard Donnie shout in alarm.

Mikey shot a glance at Casey, huddled up near the door with his chin on his knees. They shouldn’t have run in like that. Casey had seen the Footbots hanging around the roof and rushed in, screaming a challenge as he went, and Mikey had just gone along with it. They had been stupid to rush in and now Donnie was paying for it. Casey caught his eye and looked away quickly. They’d need to talk later - Mikey didn’t blame him, but they needed to talk anyway.

By the time they arrived back at the Lair Donnie still hadn’t woken up. The older brothers hustled him off to the lab, to the old army cot that had housed them many times when recovering from a more strenuous injury. Master Splinter had materialized, entered the lab, and the door had shut behind them.

For a time there was silence. Mikey bounced his knees, hands curled in his lap, staring down at the blood and chunks of something caught in the creases. He swallowed back another retch at the sight of it and looked away, looked over at his two human friends.

Casey was preoccupied staring vacantly into space while April was pacing. She was talking, a litany of phrases and reasoning that boiled down to ‘he’ll be okay because I believe he’ll be okay’ even though they all knew he wouldn’t be. She had blood spattered on her shorts and shirt from where she had hovered next to Donnie while Raph was securing the bandages better in the Shellraiser. Mikey watched her pace for a little while longer until he couldn’t stand it anymore and turned back to Casey, remembering Casey’s leg.

“I’ll go get the first aid kit we have in the dojo.” He said simply, standing up and leaving his two friends. Behind him he heard April finally stop pacing and exclaim when she saw Casey was hurt too. By the time he returned with the spare April had Casey’s jeans cut open up to his thigh and she had evidently washed her hands in that time. 

“Here.” He held it out to her and she took it without looking. 

“Mikey, go take a shower, I can handle this. When you’re done I’ll help you with your shell, okay? Donnie -” Her voice only cracked a little and Mikey was proud of how firm she could be when she was focused. She took a deep breath and her expression became less fractured porcelain and more hardened steel. “Donnie showed me what to do, just in case.”

Mikey nodded, grateful that someone was taking charge, and headed for the bathroom. Scrubbing took longer than expected, mostly because he had washed his hands over and over until they felt raw and tingly. He could still feel the grit and dried blood on the pads of his fingers, even if he couldn’t see it anymore. He stayed there staring into the shower head until the water started to cool and the second heater kicked on, then toweled off quickly and opted to forgo his belt and knee pads since April was in ‘get things done’ mode and would probably make him take them off anyway.

When he got back to the living room Casey’s leg was bandaged up, though he noticed that he hadn’t gone to get his spare clothes and get rid of the ruined pants. He sat down next to him, looking for any sign of April. He didn’t get to ask before Casey supplied an answer on his own.

“She, uh...” Casey rubbed the back of his neck. “She got me bandaged up and looked down at her shirt. She got all white and went to the kitchen in a hurry. I think she’s making tea.”

“Oh.” Mikey scratched at his knee, picking at a scab that was already forming. It hurt, and it started to bleed a little, but it was something to do with his hands. 

“Listen, man, I’m sorry I-” Casey swallowed hard enough that Mikey could hear it. “I’m sorry.”

Mikey hesitated, not sure what to say. If it was Raph he’d have stormed out and gone to brood on a rooftop, to punish himself for not thinking things through, and Mikey had always thought of Casey being cut from the same cloth. He wasn’t really sure how to deal with Casey, not yet, he just didn’t know him well enough.

“I’m just...God, I’m so fucking stupid.” Casey leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands fisted in his hair, knuckles paling as he put more tension in them. “So. Fucking. Stupid.” His voice was thick and mucousy. 

Mikey frowned, putting a hand on Casey’s shoulder. Sure, they hadn’t been prepared for the fight, but he really didn’t like hearing him call himself stupid. Especially with such conviction, like it was just a reaffirmation of something he’d been told. “Dude, come on, lets get some tea. I bet there’s ice cream in the fridge too.”

Casey sniffed and scrubbed a hand across his eyes with a hasty, slashing motion that made Mikey feel like he might be angry at himself for showing even that much weakness. Mikey kept his hand on his shoulder. Crying wasn’t any weaker than bleeding. “Yeah, okay.”

April turned sharply when she heard the noren rustle, her eyes a little too red and puffy for her to have just been standing there making tea and washing her clothes in the sink. She had changed to the mis-matched set of gi that they had scavenged for her to practice in so she wouldn’t get her clothes all sweaty. They fit her, barely, thanks to Leo’s tailoring abilities. Her street clothes were currently hanging over the counter, damp and scrubbed but still blood flecked.

“Hey guys, any word?” She asked, a high lilt to her voice that was a poor attempt to be casually positive. Mikey could appreciate that. April, unlike Casey, he knew very well. He shook his head and crossed to the fridge, retrieving half a tub of ice cream from Ice Cream Kitty. April didn’t need any prompting to get the bowls, and once Casey caught on he crossed to the drawer for spoons. 

April set the bowls down and laid them out, but her hands started shaking about the time they both realized she had gotten six out instead of three. Mikey was almost relieved when she leaned against him and buried her face into his neck, her shoulders shaking. He curled his arms around her and held her steady, nuzzling into her hair and closing his eyes as Casey crept closer and leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder. 

“Hey.” Leo sounded exhausted when he entered the kitchen behind them and slumped at the table. Mikey knew that look, it was the ‘I failed as a leader’ look and it was going to be weeks before Leo was right again. But it wasn’t the look of crushing despair. Donnie was alive and he was going to make it, it was just a question of how hurt he was at this point.

April couldn’t read Leo like that though, so she immediately launched into the questions, drawing away from Mikey to grab Leo by the shoulder. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’ll live.” Leo stirred a spoon in the empty bowl in front of him. 

Mikey tugged April back against him before she could ask any more than that. Leo wasn’t ready to talk about it yet if he didn’t elaborate immediately. It meant Donnie was hurt bad, like the time Raph broke his arm bad. 

“Can I go see him?” April managed in a small voice.

Leo paused, glancing towards the doorway. “Ask sensei first, but it should be okay.”

April shrugged out of Mikey’s grip and was off like a shot before he could say anything more, Casey right behind her. Mikey looked back at Leo, huddled over his empty bowl miserably, before following them. He could talk to Leo later, right now he wanted to see Donnie with his own eyes.

He arrived at the door just as April was finishing up a quiet conversation with Splinter. Beyond his father lay Donnie’s still body. He was breathing calmly at least, and seemed to still be out cold. He flicked a look at the empty stool. Splinter caught it and tilted his chin in the vague direction of the bathroom. Raph must have gone to take a shower, probably at Splinters’ insistence. 

Nodding at April once more and giving her shoulder a squeeze as he passed, Splinter left them to watch over his brother for the time being. April slumped down onto the vacant stool, her shoulders drooping. Mikey was going to just wait for her to talk when she wanted to, but Casey had to ask.

“What’d he say?” Casey was looking around at everywhere but at Donnie, at the swatch of bandages and plaster on his shell and the flesh of his shoulder.

“They aren’t sure how much he’ll be able to use his arm anymore. If at all.” April sounded so tiny and fragile that Mikey wanted to gather her up to his chest and keep her there.

“Oh.”

April sucked in a deep breath and turned to Mikey. “Mikey, come here, I still need to plaster your shell.” Now she was all business again, which was good for the moment at least. “Casey, you better call your dad. See if you can call my dad too, tell him something came up and I’ll be out a couple days.”

“April, he’s gonna flip out...”

“Just call him.” She shot him a firm look and gestured for Mikey to sit in front of her.

Mikey gave Casey a quick shrug and sat down, cross legged, resting his hands on the edge of Donnie’s cot just so he could have his fingers against his brothers’ skin. It was reassuring just to have the contact, and comforting that April’s hands were delicately spreading plaster and gauze over the gouges in his shell. if anyone could fix this, it was Donnie, and when he woke up that was what he would do.

Its what he always did.


	2. Daylight

  
**Daylight**

_Slip and slide on subway grates_  
_These shoes are poor man's ice skates_  
_Fall through like change in the daylight_  
_I miss yellow lines in my roads_  
_Some color on monochrome_  
_Maybe I'll paint them in myself_

**Matt and Kim**  
______

The remainder of the night - such as it was, being as it was 3 am by the time April had Mikey’s shell patched up and things had settled down - was spent sitting in the lab in shifts. Raph and April fought over who should take first shift before Splinter separated them and firmly suggested that they find themselves some other task to preoccupy them, preferably sleep. So it was Mikey who took first shift, and then only because Leo and Splinter had gone to discuss the next course of action and Casey had paled dramatically when they had thrown Rock Paper Scissors for it. Mikey let him win - what was the point of being a ninja if you couldn’t read someone well enough to consistently win at Rock Paper Scissors?

Keeping watch was uneventful at least. Donnie slept like a log when stuff like this happened to him. Once he was out he was out for a while. Mikey would have been more worried at this point if he had started to wake, but instead he just lay there quietly. He could smell the lingering aroma of one of Splinter’s infamous teas, something to help combat infection. Donnie would have a conniption when he woke up, being generally suspicious of herbal remedies no matter how many times they saved his ass from a cold or the flu. 

So Mikey sat in the dim lab and read aloud from one of Donnie’s enormous textbooks, amusing himself by purposely mispronouncing even words he could pronounce simply because he knew if Donnie was even vaguely awake he would correct him. He was really bad at faking that way. It was both reassuring and disquieting to hear only silence and his own voice echoing back. 

By the time 6 had rolled around he had made his way through four very dry chapters about genetics and was bored to tears with everything to do with RNA and Mendel. Raph made an appearance, quietly nudging him with an elbow until he gave up his stool.

“You win out over April, dude?” Mikey raised his brows, impressed Raph had won out in that regard.

“Nah, she cried herself out on the couch and fell asleep. Put her in Donnie’s room for now, she should sleep a while.” Raph shrugged one shoulder, glaring down at his feet as he sat down hard on the stool.

“You big softie.” He chided, patting his shoulder and dodged a half hearted swipe. Teasing Raph was normal, and right now they needed more normal.

“Yeah yeah, get out here and get to cooking.” Raph grumbled, wiggling until he was comfortable on the stool and cupping his hands in his lap.

“You’re not the boss of me.” Mikey sniffed, but he left to go cook anyway. Pancakes sounded like a good idea, maybe with gummi bears and sprinkles. Not that it made them taste that much better, but it did make them look more cheerful. They could use more cheerful.

He passed Casey, sleeping on the sunken couch with an arm flung across his eyes and one leg propped up on the floor above. He opted to let him sleep. The injury to his opposite leg couldn’t be hurting him too badly with how hard he was snoring. It didn’t surprise him; Casey tended to spring back from everything pretty quickly, like a rubber ball bouncing off a wall. What surprised him was the duffel bag on the floor by the TV. He recognised it from April’s house, one of the things they had retrieved from her home when she had stayed with them for a couple months.

Trusting it would be explained soon he continued on into the kitchen and was greeted with the heady smell of tea and coffee intermingled. Splinter and Mr O’Neil halted their soft conversation as he entered - Splinter acknowledged him with a nod, but Mr O’Neil smiled hesitantly. 

“Hello, Michelangelo.” 

“Uh. Hi, Mr. O’Neil.” Mikey hedged, looking back at Splinter for an explanation. Splinter remained as enigmatic as ever, closing his eyes and sipping his tea reverently.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here.” Mikey was reminded again of just how ill acquainted with them their human companions were - and how uncannily perceptive they could be even without 15 years of body language to reference. “I have some...I have connections. With everything that happened psychologists are needed a lot more. A psychiatrist I work with, she won’t ask questions if I get some prescriptions. Her ex-husband’s a surgeon. They’re good people.” Mr O’Neil explained, his fingers tensing and relaxing around the cup in his hands.

Mikey felt a swell of appreciation. After everything Mr O’Neil had been through, all the dark memories the Lair held for him and the incredible anxiety that must be gripping him to be there right now, he was still willing to help them. He was still there.

“Won’t they, um, freak out or something?” Mikey had to ask the obvious question, as he crossed to the cabinet and started getting out the supplies he would need. 

“Not everyone was saved from their mutations. This surgeon does a lot of his work under the table, for, well...When you meet him you’ll get it. He won’t be here until late tonight, he has someone in critical condition he can’t leave right now.”

“We have discussed our options in detail, this would seem to be the course that is best for us to follow.” Splinter said, finally weighing in. 

Mikey nodded, knowing that Sensei would have looked at the plan for every possible angle. He didn’t need to think about it too much if Sensei had already done so. What he needed was pancakes. With gummi bears. He considered his stash - hidden artfully behind several cans of pinto beans - and chewed the inside of his cheek when it became clear he would need more sprinkles to pull this off with acceptable levels of ridiculousness. It was possible he could sub in jelly beans, but sprinkles were still the better option. 

Shrugging, he gathered up the supplies in his arms and made haste with the mixing and pouring, doing everything by memory. No one could fault his skills in cooking. Part of it was his incurable addiction to Good Eats, the other part was that he frankly enjoyed it. This was his focus, what he liked to do when things got rough and he couldn’t deal anymore. Leo had his meditation, Raph had his punching bag, Donnie had his machines, and Mikey had his cooking. So, now, before he collapsed out of exhaustion, he was going to cook and things would look better once everyone had a full stomach.

Behind him the two adults lapsed back into silence, punctuated by the occasional slurp of tea. By the time Mikey turned, plate full of cakes in hand, Leo had slipped in silently and was sitting beside Splinter. They looked so similar side by side, the same posture, same expression. Mikey had noticed it before plenty, but sometimes it caught him by surprise and he had to blink away the double vision before he could continue doing what he was doing. 

“Here.” He dropped the plate on the generator-cum-table and went about distributing appropriate dishware. “I’ll go get everyone else for breakfast, no one can be a ninja on an empty stomach!”

No one smiled at the comment and he left debating what he possibly could do to get them to smile. First, though, he nudged Casey with a foot until Casey complained about the smell and rose with a grumble. He considered getting Raph, but Raph was in full on brood mode and probably didn’t want to leave Donnie just yet. He’d go get him last, maybe bring a plate into the lab for him. That left April. While about a year ago he’d have been nervous about waking up a girl - who knew what they did in the morning, they could be as bad as Raph throwing his sai into the wall that one time, or as easy as Leo rolling over and slouching out the door - he knew how April was.

So he knocked twice on the door to warn her, waited about thirty seconds, then entered to shake her until she actually woke up. If he just talked to her outside the door she would carry on a full conversation in her sleep. They had learned that one the hard way when none of them was brave enough to edge into the sequestered portion of the lab to wake her, it had been a very long and confusing hour of talking through a curtain about French toast and training with chipmunk-chuks. 

April, predictably, swatted at him in an effort to get him to leave.

“April, April, April,” he sing songed, rolling her shoulder with every word. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bacey! Except it’s not eggs or bacon, it’s pancakes.”

“Go away, Mikey.” April burrowed her face under Donnie’s pillow and clenched her fists in the top of it. “Feel like a semi hit me.”

Mikey thumbed his chin. April got like this sometimes, especially when one of them got hurt. Donnie had called it a sympathetic end party something or other and the only real treatment was a couple aspirin and a quiet room for a few hours. Usually she hung out in the lab because it was generally darker than the rest of the Lair.

“C’mon, pleeease?” He wheedled. “I got some aspirin with your name on it.”

She peeked out from under the pillow, all of death and hell in her gaze. It softened when she processed what he had said and she slowly emerged, shuffling out from under the battered quilt and flinching when her bare feet touched cold floor. Mikey helpfully retrieved her socks for her. They weren’t hard to find since Donnie was obsessively tidy and her socks had just been flung haphazardly across the room.

April accepted them gratefully and wriggled her toes once she had them on, clambering off the bed and staggering out into the hallway. Mikey herded her to the kitchen, got her seated, and then fetched her up some aspirin while she leaned up against her dad’s side. In some ways Mikey envied how easy her interactions with her dad were, but he would never trade Sensei for all the dads in the world. His dad was the best, end of story. 

Breakfast progressed with less fanfare than he would have liked - there was barely even a comment on the pancakes, much less the sprinkles. Aside from April making a queasy face at them before choking them down anyway. Eventually Casey wandered off in the direction of the lab to relieve Raph, who reacted more appropriately to the culinary calamity. 

“What...You know what, not gonna ask.” He sighed, sliding into Casey’s vacated space and glaring at his plate before eating with a baleful stare in Mikey’s direction. Just a little bit more normalcy in their crazy lives.


	3. Medicine

  
**Medicine**

_The medicine we're delivering_  
_A spoonful of sugar just to sweeten the taste_  
_Just to keep you in your place_  
_Never surrender, in sickness_

**The Prodigy**

______

When Donatello woke up everything was a bleary haze, voices a distant echo and faces a distant shadow. Everything faded in and out of focus and when he tried to sit up he felt a hand press hard on his right shoulder. A pain blossomed in his opposite shoulder, bringing him into the moment with sharp clarity.

He reeled, taking in ceiling and his father’s face, an unfamiliar figure with big black ears pricked upright on his right, the soft thrum of some form of something with a beat-per-minute above the generally prefered level.

“Sleep, my son.” Splinter’s voice broke through the knife’s edge of focus, soothing him back into oblivion.

Everything slipped into darkness again.

The second waking was much more gradual and much less pleasant. The room came to him first, hazy beyond roughly a meter out, but still recognisably his lab despite the sheets that had been hung up haphazardly from the rafters. White without stains. They were not ones he recognized off hand so they were very likely to be April’s doing. He knew where he was based purely on the lighting and what he could see of the floor. He tried to swallow and coughed on the dry stickiness in his throat. He managed a strangled choke before a glass was thrust into his hand and guided up to his face. The water was lukewarm and flat tasting, but it was heaven on his throat.

“My son, I am glad to see that you are awake. How are you feeling?” asked Splinter. Donatello immediately felt relief beat out the disorientation. Sensei was here and things would be better now.

“I don’t know how to answer that.” His shoulder was nothing but a dull throb and his arm was numb from that joint down to his fingers. He tried to flex them and ended up looking down to be assured the action was really happening.

“You have been given a local anesthetic, according to the doctor that Kirby brought to see you.” Splinter provided, setting the glass down and leaning forward to press a cool, dry hand to his forehead. Donatello closed his eyes briefly, savoring the touch. It was rare that their father reached out to them like this and it always felt soothing, a grounding effect.

“Doctor?” Donatello asked as Splinter’s hand withdrew, trying to sit up. His head swam with the motion and he felt nausea roil up from his stomach, halting him halfway up on his right elbow. 

Splinter held out a cautionary hand, bracing it against his back and helping him to slowly achieve a full sitting position. Donatello shuddered, a cold sweat pricking the back of his neck while he tasted bile in the back of his throat. 

“Be patient with yourself, my son. You were seriously injured. This Doctor Fakhoury thinks that you will recover well, but it will take time. He said that you may experience nausea and dizziness at first as the anesthetic wears off.” Splinter’s whiskers twitched at the mention of the doctor. Evidently he had not met with Sensei’s full approval.

“I told you, call me Vandal.” The voice was unfamiliar and tinged with an accent that was vaguely Middle Eastern. The makeshift curtain shifted aside to admit a tall, weedy looking man. He was wiry, entirely covered in fine black fur, and most definitely some form of jackal. He looked like a caricature of Anubis with thick deadlocks. The low thrum of music came from the one earbud that was still shoved into one overlarge ear, the other dangling loosely against a white tank top that had some suspicious stains on it. He held out a plate of toast and butter to Splinter in a gloved hand. “I only gave you my real name to stop you interrogating me.”

“Yes.” Splinter narrowed his eyes at him briefly as the jackal scratched at one of his arms. “I thank you for your assistance in helping my son.”

“It’s what I do.” The jackal shrugged, slinging a rolling chair over and sitting down, elbows on his knees. He pulled a penlight out of his pocket and flashed it at Donatello’s eyes, causing him to flinch and blink away the sudden spots. “Well, your pupillary response is good. Without, you know, an actual hospital there isn’t a whole lot more I can do for you except monitor your condition for a few hours.” 

“How long was I out?” A sudden stab of panic chased through his chest as he remembered why they had been out there in the first place. “There’s more bombs out there, we need to-”

“Bombs?” Fakhoury - Vandal - sat up straight. “Is that how you got a giant piece of wood launched through your shoulder?”

Splinter ignored Vandal, keeping a steadying hand on Donatello’s shoulder to prevent him from rising from the cot. “It has been approximately twenty-four hours. Your brothers have located two more of the devices and disposed of them with relative safety.”

“What?!” Donatello straightened sharply and immediately regretted it as another wave of nausea hit him. “‘Relative safety’? No one knows how to disarm bombs!”

There was a short silence punctuated by the soft beep of Timothy’s tank in the far corner.

“They, ah, did not disarm them.” Splinter hedged, something that was uncharacteristic of him.

“Wh-you know what, nevermind.” Vandal held up his hands in a defeated gesture and sat back in the chair, waiting to glean more details based on the conversation.

“They found the best option was to remove them from populated areas in which they were going to cause the most damage. They have thus far been successful in taking them to the river where they might be discharged with as little damage as possible.”

“That’s...Okay, that’s probably the best that could be done, but Sensei, that’s dangerous.” He attempted to punctuate ‘dangerous’ with a wide, sweeping gesture and stopped, hissing when pain rattled through his shoulder and side like lightning. 

“Hey, why don’t we talk about doing stupid things later, when you aren’t still, you know, bleeding all over your bandages.” Vandal wrinkled his nose, reaching out and inspecting his injury with practiced hands. The smell of copper wafted up, fresh and hot. He clucked his tongue, peeling off his gloves and laying his hands on either side of the bandages, directly on his skin. His eyes seemed to become less focused. One ear flicked, jingling earrings set all along its edges. “Just pulled one of your stitches, that’s all. I need to wash up before I can fix this. No more talk about bombs, doctor’s orders.”

He stood, carefully picking up his gloves and avoiding touching anything else with his hands as he left. 

“Sensei, please, I need to-”

“No, he is right. You must rest. Trust in your brothers, they will prevail.” Splinter gathered himself up and stood, leaving the plate on the stool he was vacating. “Eat, we will discuss this further when you have more strength to do so.”

Just like that he was left alone to contemplate slightly burnt toast and melting butter. Just because he was hurt did not mean he was useless. He clenched his good hand into a tight fist, banging it against his knee with a snort. It was only a matter of time before one of those bombs went off right in his brothers’ hands. He couldn’t let that happen. 

He glanced up with the curtain rustled again and the doctor came back with a stainless steel tray in his hands and a modified pair of wire rimmed glasses perched ridiculously on his muzzle. Vandal didn’t say anything as he unwound the bandages and started dabbing away the blood with an alcohol prep pad. Donatello sucked in a breath through his teeth when the needle threaded through his flesh, binding it back together. It only took a minute, but it felt like an hour before the thread was neatly snipped and fresh bandages were being wound around his shoulder again.

“You’re lucky as hell, you know that, right?” Vandal broke the silence finally as he tied the wrap off and tucked the ends in. “It just missed fracturing your shoulder joint and permanently losing you the use of that arm. As it is you’re going to have some nerve damage that probably won’t go away for a long time, if ever. What the hell were you doing out there, anyway? You’re just a kid.”

Donatello frowned, mulling it over. Sure, he was lucky it hadn’t been his heart, but that gave this man no right to be judgemental about it. “What needed to be done. And I’m seventeen. Are we done here?” He asked, clipped and short, dismissing Vandal from his presence.

Vandal stared at him for a long moment over his glasses, gold eyes wide and considering, and then he turned away. “Sure. We’re done. There’s antibiotics on your desk, take them once a day. If you have any redness or soreness accompanied by a fever or any kind of delirium you tell Kirby to give me a call.”

He hesitated, placing a hand awkwardly on his shoulder, chewing his bottom lip. “Just. Uh. Don’t die, kid.”

“Donatello. Not kid. And I don’t plan on it, thanks.” Donatello just barely resisted the urge to shrug away from the hand. 

Vandal sniffed and plucked his glasses off, tucking them into a case that he slid into a pocket in his jeans. “Yeah, sure. Take care, I don’t want to have to come back and fix you again.” He waved a hand over his shoulder as he left.

Donatello glared at the curtain for a time before resigning himself to his toast. If nothing else it would probably help settle his stomach.


	4. Long Way Down

  
**Long Way Down**

_I've been fucking around while you've been saving the world_  
_I've been out of my mind_  
_I've been dreaming things and scheming things_  
_I've been smoking the poison_  
_You've been slinging your anecdotes_  
_I've been fucking around while you were saving the world_  
_From nothing_

**Robert Delong**

_____

“Aw, come on man!” Casey Jones wasn’t in a good mood, not in the least. No one bothered to comment on how he had not returned home after the events of the last few days, nor how he had held a very terse conversation with his dad over the phone about it. He’d slept on the couch and pretended not to limp when no one was looking. 

The first night they had gone out he had been with them, helping to drive the Shellraiser. They had opted for it over the party wagon initially due to the simple fact that it was more durable in the event they ran into trouble. It had quickly become obvious, at least to April, that Casey was running a fever and making a very poor attempt to hide it. Finally, toward the end of the night, she had cornered him and made him let her at least feel his forehead.

She hadn’t really needed to, like with any of the guys she had a sort of sense of their well being when they were nearby. She couldn’t explain it, it was just something that came to her and always had. Now she knew it was linked to her abilities. It came in handy to be aware of them like she was, and knowing Casey was getting sick let her catch it before it got too bad.

Now, though, he was pissed and it was giving her a royal headache to be on the periphery of that on top of Donnie’s shoulder and the vague mistiness hanging around his normally sharp mind. She edged closer to the lab while he argued with Raph about not being allowed to go out on patrol. She knew she’d be asked to stay behind as well with the general idea that she would be able to sit on Casey and Donnie and keep them from doing something stupid. Really they wanted her to stay behind because they thought she might get hurt. It wasn’t as if they thought she was incapable, but the anxiety was evident any time they discussed the plans and she knew that their reasons were less about playing nursemaid and more about fear. It didn’t make it sting any less, though.

Raph and Casey began to escalate in pitch and intensity and she slipped past the doorway into the lab, away from the roiling waves of frustration and anger. Donnie was itching to get out too, if only to do something besides stare at the ceiling, but the brothers had mutually decided he be kept in the hastily put together triage center in the lab and away from anything heavier than a keyboard. His head was a buzzing hive of hornets, muted by medication and misery. The muting of his irritation made him more tolerable company than Casey and Raph right now.

She tugged on the curtain, rustling them loud enough to be a facsimile of a knock, before entering. Donnie lay on his back, his good hand flung across his eyes, headphones on his ears. Probably the best decision, given the argument behind her. His laptop was open on his lap, but all she could see was a black screen, green text that looked like a bunch of gibberish, and a flashing text cursor. He had probably been trying to code one handed again.

She settled into the rolling chair that had been wheeled in, tucking her legs up and getting comfortable. It was going to be a long one, she could tell. It had been brewing for a while, and not just because of Donnie’s incident either. She reached out a foot and nudged said mutant in the side just to make him aware of her presence before rearranging herself.

Donnie snorted, startled, knocking his headphones askew and trying to get up at the same time. He just barely saved his laptop from a grisly death on the floor before hissing through his teeth. April felt the jolt of pain that lanced through his shoulder like it was a ghostly echo on her own and she rubbed at it without thinking about it. 

“Hey there.” She said, opting for casual. He could do with a little casual right now - everyone else was treating him like he was made of porcelain and she could relate to that on a level he didn’t quite get yet. 

“H-hey.” He panted, finally sitting up. She didn’t reach out to help him, knowing firsthand the sting of his betrayed glance when she had offered the first few times. She let him do it on his own, as much as it pained her to watch him struggle. He was normally so graceful without even realizing it, to see him flounder was unsettling. He shut the laptop and slid it under the cot, adjusting his headphones around his neck. Classical flowed out of the speakers still; the soft and soothing variety, not his usual Hall of the Mountain King-esque scores. He had probably been trying to relax and she felt a little guilty about disturbing him since sleep had been coming to him so rarely by choice.

“You hungry? Mikey made us grilled cheeses for lunch, there wasn't even anything weird on them.” The question was irrelevant - he wasn’t hungry or she’d had probably felt it. He was aggravated and in pain. Still, she asked because it was polite and a good way to get him conversing. He was up now, he wouldn’t go back down until Splinter made him choke down more of that tea he had for such situations. 

He shook his head, tight lipped, and nudged his laptop with his heel with a petulant glare at the floor. 

She sighed. Lately getting a conversation out of him was like pulling teeth. She had expected him to be unhappy, but he was getting more distant and withdrawn every time the boys went out. It was hard on him to not be out there with them, where he could do more than wait for them to come back and hope they were in one piece. 

“Did you make any headway on cracking the ignition code?” April pointed at the abandoned laptop. 

“No.” He stated it flatly, with resignation in the slump of his shoulders - the one that wasn’t held up by a sling anyway. He gave her a glassy eyed stare, like he was seeing right through her and into the other room. “Will they ever stop arguing?”

She snorted, flapping a hand at the air. “You kidding me? I think it’s how they flirt.”

That got him to crack half a smile. Crooked and pained, but still there. He hadn’t really smiled in ages. April O’Neil: 1, Crushing Despair: 0. “I think they’d find creative ways to eviscerate you for that.”

“Let ‘em try,” she folded her arms, leaning back in the chair and smirking at him. 

“Mm,” he grunted, smile lapsing as he nudged at his laptop again before sliding it back out and leaning over slowly to pick it up. “Needs a charge.” He mumbled, standing up cautiously and heading towards his desk, sweeping through the curtains.

April followed him at a short distance, still keeping half an ear on the now diminished fight in the living room while she tracked his walking. He was moving more assuredly today, less off balance. Hopefully he hadn’t tried to skip his pain medication again, like yesterday. She didn’t think he had and she’d probably be able to tell if he’d done that, but she wouldn’t put it above him to reduce the dosage if left without supervision. 

He went about getting the laptop situated on the desk, fumbling the plug into the slot just as the voices of his brothers faded out into the tunnel, echoing distantly before disappearing altogether under the rumble of the Shellraiser starting up. He looked up, staring at the garage door for a long moment before heading out toward the living room. 

She didn’t need to tell him to take it easy, he already knew that. He also knew she wouldn’t kick up too much of a fuss if he went to watch the television for a couple hours so long as he did go to bed and wasn’t straining himself. He gingerly stepped down into the pit and sank into one of the seats next to a seething Casey. They barely acknowledged each others’ presence aside from a soft grunt when Donnie seized the remote and turned the TV on. It whined, high pitched and just at the edge of her hearing, before the news faded in on the screen.

Donatello mumbled something under his breath about getting new tubes for it and changed the channel, flicking through them rapidly until Casey finally had enough and snatched the remote out of his hand. He found an action movie - Speed or some other movie with Dennis Hopper - and set the remote on his opposite side so Donnie couldn’t take it back without moving. Donnie narrowed his eyes at the television screen but said nothing, his annoyance instead manifesting like a burning ember in the back of her mind.

April rolled her eyes and turned on her heel to head for the kitchen. Boys. She’d make some popcorn for all of them and then maybe they would both relax and stop feeling so sorry for themselves. “Do either of you want a dri-”

“Quiet, quiet. Turn it up.” Donnie was leaning forward, his mind sharpening as he stared at the screen intently.

April opened her mouth to tell him exactly where he could shove his ‘quiet’ when she caught sight of the screen and her jaw shut with a click. An apartment building was in flames, partially cracked down the middle, and people were running away from the wreckage while the reporter spoke of the ‘leaky gas main’ that had caused it. Casey was up and staggering up out of the pit before she realized exactly what she was looking at.

“Casey...Casey, oh my God, call your...” She whipped around and he was halfway out of the Lair already, cell phone up to his ear, yelling at his old man to pick up. She ignored Donnie’s vague sound of confusion, hurrying after him and jumping the turnstile to catch up. Casey stopped halfway down the tunnel and threw his phone at the ground where the case split off and skittered down onto the subway tracks, the battery sliding across the concrete. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He snarled, lifting a foot and nearly stomping it into dust. April caught his arm and shoved him into the wall before he could destroy it. 

“Casey, stop!” She managed before he gave her a rough shove, stumbling down the tunnel further. He was a flurry of emotions, conflicting and swirling into a vortex of panic. When Casey panicked he had only one channel to put it into and he was about to do something stupid with it.

She felt Donnie’s presence before he was at her shoulder, giving her a quick once over to be sure she wasn’t hurt. She knocked her knuckles lightly against his plastron before he could open his mouth and protest Casey pushing her. She didn’t need the damsel treatment and Donnie had no idea what was going on. “Casey, come on.”

Casey ignored her, so she followed him, aware that Donnie was at her elbow the whole time, shadowing her carefully.

“Look, Red.” Casey swept an arm under his nose with a sharp sniff, defiant and angry. “I gotta get goin’, you don’t gotta worry about it. But I am goin’, and you’re not stopping me.”

April felt a tingle of awareness spread over her scalp and knew it was Donnie putting two and two together. Good. She didn’t have to explain now. “Try and call him again at least, maybe he dropped his phone again. You should call your aunt too.”

Casey looked past them at the remains of his phone and made a frustrated noise in his throat. 

Donnie glanced down and picked it up, flipping it over and clicking his tongue. “Screen’s cracked, but I could probably get it to turn on.”

“How long?” Casey asked, fidgeting in place, looking longingly towards the nearest manhole.

“An hour, maybe less. I can move the data to a spare t-phone if the SD card’s all intact.” Donnie held out the phone. “But we don’t have that kind of time, do we?”

April gaped at him, then at Casey, whose expression had shifted from anger to grudging gratitude. “Oh no, no no no, lets call the guys, they’re already out...” 

But the boys were already in ‘get shit done’ mode and there was no stopping the tide of their combined efforts except to summon a steamroller from the sky. She sighed in resignation.

“We should go back to the lab, I have a backdoor into a few security systems around the city. If one’s close enough we can see what to expect.” Donatello was half turned, preparing to walk back. 

“Dude, this is - I need to go right now.” Casey hedged, full of frittering nervous energy and the need to fight something, anything.

Donnie did the thing April thought was least wise in this situation. He sneered. “Into what's probably an ambush? You’re way smarter than that, Casey.”

Casey nearly boiled over, his anger spiking in such a way that it actually made April flinch when he passed her. “What the fuck would you know anyway? Huh?” He punctuated with a shove to Donnie’s chest. 

His pain flared iron hot, but Donnie clenched his jaw against crying out. His face wasn’t as schooled though and Casey recoiled, hands up. Donnie let himself grimace, his free hand coming up to hover just above his bandaged shoulder. 

“Oh, shit, dude I’m sorry.” He held out one of his hands, unsure about how to help, rage settling into a slow burn under the surface of concern. 

“Don’t.” Donnie ground out at length. “Let’s go.” He spun on his heel and headed back towards the Lair, stiff legged and radiating pain and frustration. He didn’t expect either of them to protest or even consider leaving without him, because he did not look back even when they reached the lab and he sat down gingerly in his chair to retrieve his charging laptop. 

Casey hovered near the doorway, caught between rushing to his apartment building and actually following Donnie’s advice to see what was waiting for them. “Hey, are you gonna be okay?” He asked, finally, breaking the suffocating quiet that had fallen, punctuated only by Donnie typing one handed furiously.

“Don’t.” Donnie repeated, flat and final. He turned his laptop around, showing them the various resized windows displaying a singular camera view. April had the itching suspicion that it was the ATM by the Sav-a-Lot down the street from Casey’s. “This is the only camera I can find nearby on short notice. Not much help, but at least we know about that van there.”

April squinted and her eyebrows shot up when she recognised the general shape of the graphics on the side of the van. “Bebop and Rocksteady.”

“Mmhm.” Donnie nodded, already standing and grabbing a spare bo from where it was sitting against the wall. He went to sheath it and fumbled, having completely forgotten his holster was not on his back. He grunted in displeasure and leaned the weapon back against the wall. “Good chance that was not an accident and we’re heading for a fight.”

Not that it was ever really considered by any of them that it could be an accident anyway. Donnie grabbed his laptop and shoved it into the battered leather messenger bag he carried occasionally, brushing past the both of them and heading for the dojo. April hesitated before following, assuring herself that Casey wouldn’t run out on his own again. By the time they reached the dojo Donnie had divested the weapons cabinet of its remaining shuriken and kunai, struggling to keep the flap of the bag open while he packed the extras into it. 

April didn’t go to help him, knowing it would just be considered pity. He couldn’t read her like she could read him, he had trouble enough with body language period without considering how quickly he jumped to the worst conclusion in the best of circumstances. Casey hedged at the edge of the dojo, having never properly entered it himself. April gave him a quick nudge in the ribs and mimed taking her shoes off before turning and heading away. They could have whatever awkward conversation Casey was dancing around while she went to get her tessen and other accoutrements. 

Ten minutes later she had her arms wrapped properly like Master Splinter had shown her, her tessen hanging from its clip on her belt, and her phone on silent because she had learned that lesson the hard way. She also had Donnie’s gear looped over an arm, assuming it would be easier if he at least had his belt. 

“-ust don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to go out there like this, man. Raph would kill me if anything happened to you.”

April stopped, considering if she should interrupt or not, but this was a conversation that needed to happen. She had wanted to bring it up herself, but she was proud of Casey for doing it.

Donnie’s silence was full of seething and she heard him close the cabinet with a little more force than needed.

“Seriously dude, I already - Just. Look, I’m sorry.” Casey sounded so small, like his throat was closing up. “Sorry.”

“I made my choices, Jones. Let’s focus on what needs done now.” Donnie was using the even, flat tone he used when he was trying to explain something he found to be a simple concept. And he called him Jones. He only did that when he was pissed anymore. She didn’t need to be in the room or even in range of their emotional spheres to know Casey had flinched. 

Donnie sighed, long and low, releasing some tension with it. Good. He knew he was being unnecessarily hard on Casey right now. “Look, you need me on this. We’re calling the guys on the way, but we’re still the closest even on foot. I took a look at their GPS locations while you were gawking at the halberd. April, are you going to stand out there all night or come up here?”

April snorted in surprise despite herself. Stupid ninjas. She slunk up the stairs, holding up his gear over her arm. “Here, I got your wraps and your belt.”

Donnie raised a brow but didn’t pursue the matter of her eavesdropping on them, instead holding out a hand to take them. He ran his good thumb over the worn leather, frowning. April was briefly thrown by the sensation of fear she felt spike in him as he went about trying to detach the holster from the belt. Donnie felt trepidation before any mission, but this was actual deep rooted fear and that had her more worried than what they were walking into. She watched him struggle to slice through the leather strapping with his tanto for a moment before laying a hand over his and sliding the belt over with her free hand so she could hold it steady.

The touch was all she needed to get a better read. He was afraid for several reasons; afraid Casey’s father was dead and they were retrieving a corpse, afraid she would get hurt (this was a constant and unsurprising), afraid for Casey (also unsurprising), and afraid he would never be able to get full use of his left hand back. He was left handed, despite being functionally ambidextrous, and already being unable to move his dominant arm without staggering pain was causing him no small amount of anxiety. Because Donnie fixed things and Donnie fixed people, and without both hands he was going to consider himself only half as good at what he did. That was just how he was.

She gave his hand a squeeze and pretended not to notice the tremor that went through him. He’d talk to her about it later, like he always did. Late nights in the lab getting very good at feigning (and sometimes not feigning) sleep had given her a lot of insight into how he operated. 

He sliced the holster free and didn’t protest in the slightest when she buckled the belt around his waist. She had to cinch it tighter than it was normally, the leather worn like a comfortably broken in shoe. He slid a tonfa into the gap left by the bridge of his shell and waved off the wraps. He had lost weight already, might never regain full use of his hand, and obviously did not feel at all alright, and yet it would take hell itself to stop him from helping his friend.

“Let’s go.” He jerked his chin towards the door and didn’t say anything when Casey picked up the messenger bag and helped to slide it over his good shoulder and across his chest. 

Maybe that sheer determination and will to help was what she loved about him the most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutouts to Faith, Believer, and Nov for helping me make sure Casey's dialog was in character!


	5. Burn My Shadow

  
**Burn My Shadow**

_I faced my destroyer_  
_I was ambushed by a lie_  
_And you judged me once for falling_  
_This wounded heart will rise_  
_And burn my shadow away_

**Unkle**

______

It had taken the better part of half an hour to reach Casey’s street, owing mostly to Casey’s barely concealed limp and Donatello’s own frustrating slow pace. By the time they reached the alley two blocks away from Casey’s apartment Donatello was grinding his teeth at a near audible rate. It was aggravating on a level previously unknown to him to be so restricted in how he could help. He had no doubt that they should not engage Bebop and Rocksteady at all, but he also had no doubt that they needed to be on the scene as quickly as possible to mitigate damages. He was loathe to admit it, but part of that mitigation was to take care of any casualties, which was why he had made April get his med kit out of the lab on their way out. 

They stopped at the edge of the alley. The heat of the still ongoing fire felt warm even from here and he was sure it was worse up close. No one had to look around the corner to know that the explosion had been particularly bad. The newscast had shown it, of course, and the presence of the news vans had Donatello’s high hopes that Bebop and Rocksteady would have made a hasty retreat. It wouldn’t do to have any connection to the incident. 

He caught Casey by the sleeve before he could bolt for the the police line, giving him a quick shake of his head and pointing up. Casey looked like he was going to hit him for a split second before huffing in acknowledgement. April, never needing to be told these things, jumped onto the dumpster and caught the edge of the fire escape. The three of them made their way up to the roof, unnoticed due to the distraction the fire was providing. Up above street level the flashing lights of the rescue vehicles became visible, and the light of the fire was that much more intense. They crossed four rooftops, silent as shadows, and crouched in the shelter of an air conditioner. The apartment building was just one building away, but they hadn’t dared to jump on the adjoining rooftop for fear of that building being damaged as well.

The building looked like it had been cracked in half, the far supporting wall in shambles, but thankfully three of the walls were still intact. The air was hot and dry, almost choking him with dust. He slid his mask down and spread the fabric out so it covered his mouth and nostrils. Beside him Casey was doing the same with his bandana. He had a thick scar on his forehead at the crest of his bangs that Donatello had never noticed before, but it struck him that he had never seen Casey without the headband on. April made do with pulling her shirt up over her nose. The apartment building was intermittently lit up with the distinctive beam of a flashlight or two.

“Alright. There’s probably firefighters inside. That’s good. It means that your family is being taken to get care if they need it. But Casey, April, if you want to go, I understand.” Donatello nodded down at the flashing lights. “What I don’t understand if why they chose this building though, there hasn’t been any real pattern to where they’re planting these other than being the second one in Hell’s Kitchen. Casey, do you know anything that might stand out about your neighborhood?”

Casey shook his head, transfixed by the fire across the street. His fingers twitched, he was obviously aching to go do something about it. 

“They aren’t going up to the top floor.” April observed. “It’s...They don’t think it can take the weight maybe.” Her eyes crinkled as she concentrated, one hand delicately touching her temple. “I can’t tell.”

Casey stood and strode toward the edge of the rooftop, making for the fire escape on the opposite of the roof. He was over and down quicker than Donatello thought he could have possibly moved with his bum leg.

“I think Casey lives on the top floor.” April said softly, following him at a run.

Donatello hissed a bitter curse through his teeth. “Catch up to him, don’t let him go in!” He needed to see the building up close to evaluate if it was structurally sound or not. He scrambled to catch up, unable to jump from any great height without the benefit of being able to catch himself with both hands or a good twenty percent of his sense of balance. By the time his feet touched the ground Casey and April were nowhere in sight, so he had to guess which way they went. He raced towards the darker portion of the alley and straight through a crowd of observing people. Several gasps and cries of shock trailed in his wake, and he winced internally at how stupid coming down to the street was. He kept going, hoping no one caught up to him, ignoring the growing ache as he jolted his shoulder with every stride. 

He saw a flash of red hair and turned on his heel, following it into the back of the building, barely missing barrelling over a cop that just happened to turn the corner at the same time. He jumped sideways, sprang off the doorframe, and flipped over the startled officer’s head. The frame cracked loudly under the pressure and Donatello would have ground out another swear except that the sudden heat sucked the moisture from his mouth. Ahead he heard April coughing violently and put a steadying hand on her shoulder, keeping her next to him as they ran forward, looking frantically for Casey. The debris underfoot stung and he wished he had shoes to protect them more than ever. 

“Which way?” He wheezed, squinting as the heat made it difficult to see. 

April pointed, guiding them towards the center stairs. Donatello gave it a quick inspection. Still sound - the concrete hadn’t cracked and it was not straining. It was the other portions of the building that were unstable. The concrete would hold, it was the wooden portions of the structure that were going to be dangerous. He led her into the dark stairway and reached into his messenger bag, fishing around until he found the battered Zippo he had scavenged. The cop he had startled was shouting behind them. Above them he could hear the voices of the firemen, and the unmistakable clatter of footsteps. 

They took off after the footsteps. If Casey stepped off the stairwell before he could check the floor...Donatello didn’t want to think about what could happen. He only gave half a thought to sending April back out before dismissing it entirely. It would be a waste of time to even try to discourage her. So up they went, ascending into smoke and chaos, dodging firemen escorting victims out, slowing as it became overwhelming and blinding. The footsteps above them slowed, stopped, resolved themselves into Casey bent double and still trying to scramble up the stairs on all fours. Donatello stopped, wheezing against the smoke and having been crouching to get his head out of the roiling black cloud. The last doorway was two steps ahead, and past that was black and unknown. He passed Casey, squatting carefully at the threshold, and held his nearly useless Zippo out to observe the status of the floor. The fire was being put out, thanks to the firetrucks outside, but the smoke was rising quickly and it wasn’t escaping the narrow hallway well. The floor looked solid for the first few observable feet though.

“Number?” He croaked out, looking back at Casey. Casey held up five fingers, still struggling to breath. He looked like he was going to pass out and thankfully April was right behind him, hand on his shoulder, ready to get him away if he went south.

Not that they weren’t already so far south as to be in the territory of ‘moronic.’ Donatello crept forward, Zippo held before him like an inefficient torch, cursing himself for forgetting his damned flashlight. He became aware that April was at his left flank, Casey paces behind. He paused, shooting her a firm stare that stopped her in her tracks, and proceeded forward alone. The floor was stable where he was, but he couldn’t guarantee it would stay that way. The building shuddered disturbingly, low creaks and groans of the straining mass of concrete and wood echoing like snapping bones around him. He reached the doorway of the fifth apartment and was relieved to find it already splintered into pieces, requiring no breaking in from his part. 

Smoke billowed through the open door and out through a window - a slight cool breeze was ushering it out into the street and Donatello had to resist the urge to take a great, sucking breath of still smoky air. He crept slowly inside, inspecting the floor and trying not to damage his feet any further. Adrenaline was doing wonders to keep him moving, but he was going to pay for this abuse later. A figure lay in the middle of a dingy living room, sprawled on his back, broken bottles and a smashed coffee table littered in pieces around him. He fumbled the lighter closed and tried to feel for a pulse, but had difficulty finding the points in the dark. Donatello licked his palm and held it over the man’s mouth, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when he felt the soft rush of air against it.

He felt around and got the Zippo, sliding the cap back and lighting it again, spying a piece of paper clutched tightly in the man’s hand. His face was bloody, like he had maybe fallen. Donatello took the slip of paper and tucked it into his bag, careful not to light it with the Zippo, heading for the doorway. “Casey! I need your help here! Be careful, keep really close to the wall, the center of the hallway is bound to give out.”

Casey looked away from the door he was currently beating the hinges off of and wordlessly gave April his bat. She resumed the progress as he approached. Between the two of them they hefted the limp man onto Donatello’s back - all things considered he had more muscle in his legs than Casey and April had combined - and they made their way carefully back. April was nowhere to be seen, but the door was lain out on the floor and the apartment they passed was empty.

“Missus Giovani.” Casey said as they passed it. “She’s 80 and mostly deaf.”

Nothing more needed said. April was in view within a few moments, leading an elderly woman to the landing and handing her off to a young fireman who ushered the both of them out in a hurry. Flashlights from the other rescue personnel bobbed and danced down the stairs, out the door at the bottom. 

Above them the building shuddered and groaned, a sound that raised Donatello’s hackles and prompted him to hurry. The man’s limp form jolted against his injured shoulder, waves of hot pain flaring with every step, but they kept going. Casey bracing the guy against his back and Donatello doing all he could not to bend at the knees and puke all over the stairs. 

They made it to the third landing when there was the horrible shriek of twisting steel, rumbling concrete, and a shout from the firefighters below. Donatello dropped the Zippo, fell to his knees, and twisted, grabbing Casey with his good hand and huddling over him and the unconscious man as the upper half of the building gave out, slamming into the floor below, then the floor below that. Dust blew down the stairwell, thick and choking, but the majority of the stairs were holding for now. Debris clattered off his shell. Donatello scrabbled at Casey’s arm, urging him to help him in the darkness to get the man up onto his back again. Casey’s hands found the body and together they hefted it back up, more of his weight over Donatello’s right shoulder this time, and hurried down while the building crumbled around them.

At the last landing they found the door blocked and Donatello kicked it twice before sitting down hard on the concrete. Casey shuffled around him nervously in the darkness, the weight of the man easing off his back and being replaced with jolting agony. He hissed through his teeth as the building howled again like a dying thing. 

He felt around his messenger bag until he found the catch and just barely avoided slicing open his finger on a kunai as he pulled out his laptop. He flipped the screen open, the Hamato seal glowing red on a black background before he opened a blank OpenOffice document for the light. It was blinding, but he needed the clarity to see their surroundings.

“What’re you gonna do man, hook up to wifi and surf the net?” Casey sounded incredulous. Donatello tossed him his T-Phone and evaluated the door.

“I can always get wifi, I live in a freaking sewer.” It was an automatic, snotty response, but banter made things easier between them as Casey flicked through his contacts and dialed up Leo. It rang through four times and went to voicemail. Donatello’s heart sank into his stomach. He knelt beside the man and checked him over again for any grievous injuries. He probably had a broken or fractured arm, and clearly had a head injury, but there was nothing else that seemed immediately pressing. He was lean in the same way Casey was; all sinewy muscle and a grizzled five o’clock shadow with a scar on his chin. He went back to the door as Casey tried one of his other brothers. They didn’t need to call April, she’d be trying to get to them any way she could anyway, and drawing attention to her would just make that more difficult. He swallowed a lump of worry in his throat that whispered that she may not have made it out in time. There wasn’t time to worry right now.

The stairwell quivered as another floor above gave way, slowly, piece by piece. Clunk, crunch, smash, rumble. It wasn’t falling all at once. Donatello dared to hope the next floor caving in on itself would be the last for a little while, at least. 

If not. Well. He turned to Casey and held out his good hand. “Jones. It’s been a...Well, I wouldn’t say a pleasure.”

Casey swallowed thickly, wiping some of the grime off his face and glaring at his outstretched hand for a moment before he caught it, gripping it hard enough Donatello felt his joints protest. “It’s been cool, Asshole.”

“Bonehead.” It was punctuated with a soft, affectionate punch to the shoulder when his hand was released.

The door screeched and dim flickering light poured in the gap, immediately filled with April’s furious face. She wedged it further open with a big metal pipe. Smart girl, using a fulcrum to move what had to be a giant chunk of the ceiling. “Would you two dumbasses stop being dramatic?”

“But that’s not a c-word.” Donatello said dumbly.


	6. Far Away from Home

  
**Far Away from Home**

_If we could make it through the darkest night_  
_We'd have a brighter day._  
_The world I see beyond your pretty eyes_  
_It makes me want to stay._  
_And who can heal those tiny broken hearts?_  
_And what are we to be?_  
_Where is home on the milkyway of stars?_  
_I dry my eyes again._

**Groove Coverage**  
  
_____  
  


Donatello felt the sharp twinge of embarrassment as April’s glare turned directly on him, hard and unyielding. He hummed in his throat and looked away, unable to meet her gaze for the flush that was traveling up his neck.

He’d given up too soon entirely. He was a fixer, he should have been fixing things instead of wallowing in self pity. She knew and he knew it. Casey probably knew it too because he brushed past him and grabbed the other end of the pipe and pulled it further in, helping April wedge the door further open. 

The building gave a warning rumble and Donatello shook himself out of his own personal shame, gripping the end of the pipe with his good hand and shoving his weight against it. It creaked against his plastron and he tried to wedge it upward, leaving a gap in the doorway. There was something behind the door trying to press it closed again. April disappeared and he heard her straining behind the door.

“It’s no good, I can’t move it,” she gasped, straining again.

“Casey,” he gritted through his teeth. “Get your dad out. I’ll hold it.”

“What about-” Casey started to protest but Donatello fixed him with a sharp glare.

“Get him out of here, then worry about me.”

Casey swallowed hard, but gave him a quick nod and dragged his dad towards the gap. April reappeared, reaching inside and helping to turn the man’s unconscious body so he could slip out sideways. Donatello ground his teeth, panting and trying not to let his limbs shake too much until they were out. 

He released the pressure as soon as Casey’s leg slipped out, the door sliding back into place with a six inch gap from the width of the pipe. It groaned and Donatello could see a bend forming where the door’s edge was pressing into it.

“Donnie!” April reached a hand in, grabbing his wrist. “Donnie, come on, we have to go!”

“I have...I need to catch my breath,” he panted, giving in and squatting on the floor. Her hand left his skin with the motion and he felt that much colder without its presence. She shuffled around and reached back in, plunging her arm up to the bicep inside and gripping his good shoulder like it was a lifeline.

“Donnie, we don’t have much time. Please.” The pleading in her voice made his guts clench.

“Get Mr Jones out, I’ll follow behind. I promise.” Donatello swallowed thickly, not daring to look at her. He stared instead at the cracked concrete beneath his feet, lit by the glow of his laptop on the bottom stair.

“Don’t you even think you can lie to me, Hamato Donatello,” she hissed angrily. “I can tell. Besides, you’re terrible at it. Casey! Help me move this thing.”

“I’m gonna go find another pipe, hold on.” Casey’s footsteps retreated somewhere beyond his sight.

Donatello grimaced. If they weren’t going to leave he was going to have to try again, even though his arm and legs felt like leaden weights. He reached out to snap his laptop closed and caught the little slip of paper he had taken from Mr Jones’ hand. He shoved the laptop into his messenger bag and slid his hand out, waving the paper, bag looped over his forearm.

“Here, this was in Mr Jones’ hand. Take my bag too, please.”

April obliged, slinging the bag over her shoulder and giving the paper a cursory glance. Then she stopped and read it thoroughly, her face going even paler under the coating of dust. “Oh no...”

“What is it?” Donatello rose to his feet, leaning on the wall and pressing his face to the gap. Blessedly fresh air was coming in, probably from a broken window.

April opened her mouth and shut it with a click, stuffing the slip of paper into her pocket while shaking her head. “Let's get you out first.”

“April.” He said it flatly, annoyance creeping into his tone that normally was not associated with her name in general.

“Donnie,” she returned, wrinkling her nose at him. “Let’s get you out first.”

He stared at her for a long moment out of the dark, the light outside reflecting off his eyes, before he broke the gaze. “Fine. If the pipe doesn’t work there’s something in my lab that might help.”

“Yeah?” She pushed some rubble out of the way, obviously leaving him an opening to talk. He was grateful. Talking about projects usually helped him to get his head straight, and right now it was swimming in a sea of pain and exhaustion.

“Gravity gauntlet. Not sure if it works just yet, but I have a prototype and the theory is sound.” He didn’t bother to mention that ‘theory’ and ‘plausibility’ did not necessarily coincide.

“That’s cool,”April said, humoring him. Then she stopped moving things for a few seconds, a silence punctuated by the sound of tiny objects falling from the ceiling of the lobby. “Wait, seriously?” 

“Theoretically, yeah.” Donatello rubbed his temple with his free hand. 

“Wow.” She sounded impressed and he had the briefest of moments to feel incredibly satisfied with himself before he heard Casey approaching.

“Hey! I got this, think it’ll work?” Casey hefted a heavier pipe into view, probably liberated from the overhead sprinklers. Most of them weren’t currently operating and a foul smelling sludge leaked from the end. Donatello nodded and backed away from the doorway.

Casey stabbed it through the gap ferociously, like he was stabbing some struggling animal, and heaved his weight against it one way. Donatello grabbed the other end and pressed as much as he was able at the opposite side. April scrambled up to the wall and used her legs to shove a huge piece of concrete out of the way, leaving the door to bang mostly open with the boys mutual weight against it. 

The sudden lack of resistance left Donatello staggering hard against the pole, dragging Casey to his knees and jerking Donatello to a halt when he ran out of room. He banged his shoulder on the pole when he stumbled and he couldn’t help the strangled yelp that left his throat. Stars flashed beneath his clenched eyelids as he sat down hard, vaguely aware of Casey cursing about his skinned knees and April’s yell of concern.

Cool hands caught the sides of his face and pulled it upwards. He squinted up at April, trying hard not to cry. It hurt so badly, he thought he might be sick to his stomach. He tried to look away but April pulled his face back. Her eyes were so blue against the dusty air behind her, like they were the only speck of color. The overhead lights flickered on, then off again, and flashlights shone in the background like distorted fireflies. The world was narrowed to a pinpoint of blue eyes surrounded by a hazy background.

“Donnie.” He became aware of her voice and focused on it like he was focusing on her eyes. “We have to go now. Understand me?”

He opened his mouth to try and respond and choked on his own spit, coughing until he dry heaved, his shoulder singing even louder. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, a harsh whooshing sound that deafened him to April’s continued coaxing.

He felt a shoulder push up under his right side, urging him to his feet. A smaller hand came to rest against his left side, carefully under where the wrappings had his arm pinned to his chest. His legs trembled and his entire left side felt like it was on fire, burning him from the inside out, but he found his feet underneath him. They moved mechanically, almost of their own accord. Together the three of them staggered out of the building and out of sight down the other end of the alley, bruised and bleeding, but miraculously alive.

Somewhere along the way they managed to get down a manhole and back into the sewer. It must have been well over four blocks later before Donatello had the presence of mind to actually speak.

“Wh-Mr. Jones?” He grimaced, saliva pooling in the back of his mouth like it always did before he was sick. He swallowed thickly and tilted his head back more. 

“Couple firemen were coming in the other door, they heard you yell. He’ll be fine.” Casey sounded at least marginally less angry than he could have been. So that was who he was leaning on. 

“April, the note-” He stopped, an angry prickle crawling up his throat and he took a deep breath, trying to stop it from happening. That was quickly an impossibility and he pushed away from Casey, leaning against the wall and leaving what little food he had in his stomach on the walkway behind them. 

“Aw, dude...” Casey put a hesitant hand on his good shoulder, unpleasantly clammy with sweat and thickly calloused. 

“You should have stayed back at the Lair.” April muttered, kneeling beside him and touching the back of her hand to his forehead. It was cool and he heaved out a sigh of relief. She sucked on her teeth and grunted her disapproval. “I think you have a fever.”

“Or I was just in a burning building,” Donatello muttered, scrubbing his hands at the sides of his face. He did at least feel more cognizant, even if he was starting to get cold in his extremities. He shivered when Casey looped his arm under his good shoulder again and started walking them towards the Lair. 

“I’m calling Vandal,” April announced, slipping ahead of them and dialing on her phone before he could protest. She waited for a while, made a disgusted noise, and dialed again. She redialed three more times before they reached Lair and she finally got through.


End file.
